Guest Post & Giveaway: Jennifer Malone Wright

I am pleased to welcome Jennifer Malone Wright, who is here today to discuss the importance of encouraging children to read and write.  As a language teacher, this is especially near and dear to my heart, as is any literacy initiative and advocate. She is also here to promote her Vampire Hunter's Daughter Series as a Complete Collection.  If you are not familiar with this series, take a quick look:

This special edition of The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter contains parts I-VI, the complete collection. Fourteen-year-old Chloe witnesses her mother’s murder at the hands of a vampire. Before the vampire can kidnap her, there is an unexpected rescue by a group of vampire hunters.

Overwhelmed by the feeling of safety, Chloe passes out and they whisk her away to their small community. When Chloe wakes, she comes face to face with the only other living relative, besides her mother, whom she has ever met: her grandfather. Chloe’s mother kept her hidden from the family; now, Chloe tries to unveil the family secrets.

Through her grandfather, she learns her mother was a vampire hunter. In fact, her entire family is descended from the powerful bloodlines of vampire hunters. Chloe agrees to join the family she has never known for one reason only: Chloe vows to kill the vampire responsible for her mother’s murder. With vengeance in her soul, Chloe is even more determined to follow through on her vow when she discovers the true identity of her enemy and how he is connected to her.

Experience the world of vampire hunter’s, vampires and mythology with Chloe in this exciting series.

Encouraging children to read and write.

Thank you for having me here today! I’m excited to be doing this guest blog and hope you all enjoy it. I’m going to be discussing how to encourage young people to write.

I have five children, one is in high school and the only other two who go to school are in grade school. As I watch my children go through the grades I am constantly amazed at how little they are encouraged to actually read or write in school. One example of this is that my daughter came home with ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ and told me that she didn’t have to read it because they had the audio version available for them. To me, this is discouraging children to read, which in turn discourages them to write.

I also see that a lot of children now, especially teens, either don’t spell very well or don’t care. It seems that IM has become a part of language, which is sad. It is also sad that book reports aren’t as common as they used to be.

I think that reading and writing is one of the utmost important things you can learn to further yourself in life. So, as a writer and an avid reader I am a stickler when it comes to getting my kids to read, and reading is the entrance to the writing world.

One of the ways that I have learned is a great way to encourage your children to begin writing is to have them start a journal. Many grade school classrooms do this, but if you have them start one at home it will stem the writing bug. Tell them they can write anything they want…their life stories, their daily activities, make up tall tales...the possibilities are endless.

I remember in school, I can’t remember which grade; we had a project where we made little books out of cardboard, wall paper and duct tape (we have colored now.) Then we wrote a story and got to take it home. Well, I was adamant about having mine put in the library at school. I bugged my teacher so much that she actually took me to the library and got it logged into the system. I think this would be a great project to stem the imagination and possibilities of the world of writing for our children.

Telling stories! Having kids do chain stories is a wonderful way to get their imagination pumping. Sit down with them and start a story and then have a child continue it, then the next one continues what the first child told, and so on. Kids love this and in the long run it plants a seed about writing stories down. The good part about this is that the pressure to write it down isn’t there; it’s less scholastic, which takes that ‘I have to do it’ way of thinking out of their heads and allows the creativity in.

One of the last and most important things you can do to encourage children to write is to read. You read, because they see it. Read to them, because they like it. Get them to read, because it’s good for them. Reading, reading, reading! I just can’t stress it enough.

We all have our children that don’t like to read. I think it’s all about finding what they like to read. Sometimes it takes a while, but you will find something that eventually strikes their interest. Make sure to visit the library, where they can look at the books and read the backs to see what they like. A lot of libraries have story time for smaller children too!

Some children may be drawn more to the journalistic side of writing, rather than fiction. Well I say roll with it. Have them write about current events (I don’t know if they still do that in school, but we had to do it when I was young.) Or, you can let them write little articles about things that happened in your town, about the high school football games or the local parade. They could even interview some people from local businesses or people who have a cool story to tell.

Then save all their articles in a scrap book. It will be something they can look at and save for the future. You never know what will inspire a child to want to build a future in writing.

I hope that you have enjoyed my little tidbits of thought on encouraging children to write. I know that I enjoyed writing it and thank you so much for having me here today!

Author Biography

Jennifer Malone Wright resides in the beautiful mountains of northern Idaho with her husband and five children. Between the craziness of taking care of her children, whose ages range from fourteen all the way down to six months, and being a homemaker, Jennifer has little time left for herself. The time she does have left, usually leading far into the night, is spent working on freelance work or her beloved fiction.

When she grew up, Jennifer always had her nose in a book. She has been writing stories and poems since grade school. This love of the written word and her strong interest in the paranormal is what has led to her first novel “The Birth of Jaiden.”

In addition to being a mother and homemaker, Jennifer is also a very proud military wife. Moving around the country for the last ten years has made her a bit of a nomad and she finds it difficult to be in one place for too long.

Jennifer is also the author of The Birth of Jaiden, a paranormal novel filled with action, suspense, and even a love story.

Website/ Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads / Amazon Author Page

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